Sam & I AM

I didn’t know love,
not the real kind.
Not the quiet kind,
not the hold-you-when-you’re-bleeding kind.

I knew taking,
I knew cost.
I knew how it felt,
to be claimed, then lost.

I knew promises broken,
before they were made.
I knew eyes that wandered,
and hands that betrayed.

I was a lesson in survival,
a map of what not to do.
Taught early that love,
was a game to lose.

I built walls from silence,
and armor from shame.
If love came close,
I backed away.
But cracks began forming
in the walls I’d obeyed.

I didn’t expect it,
this shift in my soul.
A soft little spark,
that made broken things whole.

No questions, no judgment,
no need to pretend.
Just eyes that saw mine,
and didn’t condemn.

I was terrified still,
but something felt new.
Like maybe love,
could be honest and true.

Taught me that healing,
is messy and sometimes slow,
that love isn’t earned,
it just needs to grow.

Never asked for perfection, 
or needed any proof.
Just reached for my hand,
and revealed a new truth.

It wasn’t wrapped in pressure,
or hidden behind shoulds.
It didn’t keep score,
it simply understood.

It wasn’t built on conditions,
or masked by control.
It showed up uninvited,
and cared for my soul.

It was soft, it was fierce,
it was wild and bright.
It came with the morning,
and stayed through the night.

For the first time,
I gave love without fear.
Without regret,
that it too would disappear.

Not through romance,
or fairytale dreams,
but through you I discovered, 
what real love means.

And just when I thought,
my heart wouldn’t recover, 
Love Found Me,
when I became your mother.